A Year of Fun and Learning

It was just about a year ago that I started playing with the group of guys I now refer to as "the band". I've already shared quite a bit about a lot of the fun and learning that has taken place in these last 12 months, but I had a real eye opener just this morning. At our last practice session, we began talking seriously about gigging. We all feel pretty confident in our abilities, and we are looking for the next step, to help us take it to the next level. One of the first things we did was to start talking about a set list. Our drummer, Andy, sent out an email with a list of the songs we play on a regular basis. To my suprise, there were almost 30 songs! He did not include the songs we have only played a couple of times, or the ones with which we are still struggling and tweaking. These 30 songs are songs which we would feel comfortable playing in front of paying customers. Add the other odd numbers, and we are at roughly 35. On top of that, I have a out 10 or 12 songs that I play on my own, but don't do with the group. So in short, I have gone in one year from not knowing how to play the guitar to playing nearly 50 songs, and most of them pretty darn well (at the risk of sounding a little arrogant).

So what's my point? By learning a few simple chord shapes, a couple of scales and finding a group of like-minded musicians to play with, I have been able to go from "guy who thinks it would be cool to play the guitar" to "guy who plays guitar in a legitimate band". It's far from impossible, in fact I wouldn't even go so far as to say it's even been difficult. I don't say any of this in an attempt to toot my own horn. I bring up the point to illustrate that anyone at any age can make the decision to pick up an instrument and start to play and have fun. For that matter, it's not even limited to music. If there is something you've always wanted to do, play guitar, get a degree, run a marathon, write a book, whatever, the only thing stopping you is you! Don't let fear and intimidation keep you from living the life you want to live.

In the mean time, crank it up to 11, and rock out!

And as always don't forget... Slow is smooth, smooth is fast!!

Low Cost Gear Upgrades

            In my last post, I talked a little about good sound on a budget. Specifically regarding several articles I had read recently about well-known artists who use low end guitars both on tour and in the studio. That got me thinking about my own situation. A while back I won a Fender American Standard Strat in a Fender giveaway. The guitar is a classic piece of work; I am just not a big fan of the single coil sound. So for several months I have been speaking with guitar shops about possible trades to get into something with humbuckers. This has been a pretty discouraging undertaking so far. For the most part, even though the guitar is like new and sells for $900-1000, guitar shops only want to give around $300 in trade-in. I am not going to trade a $1000 guitar for a $300 guitar, just on principle. So, up to now, I have held on to it and it sits in its custom hard side case in my closet.

            So, taking a bit of my own advice, I have started looking at upgrading the stock single coil pickups with after-market humbuckers. I am intrigued by the humbuckers that are the same size as the single coil pickups, allowing me to upgrade without having to replace or alter my pick guard in any way. My research so far has revealed that I can get into a set of Strat humbuckers for $200-300. Even cheaper than that, I can buy a single bridge humbucker for less than $100 and have it installed for about $15 so I don’t have to mess with any soldering myself and screw anything up. I am also looking into upgrading my pots. Just for the record, up until about two weeks ago, I had no idea to what the term “pots” was referring. Now I know that “pots” is short for potentiometers, aka….. your knobs. Pot’s sounds cooler… Anyway, I have read that when upgrading from single coil to humbucker pickups, one should upgrade the tone and volume controls to higher capacities. Another cool option in to get push-pull (aka. coil tapping or coil splitting) knobs. This allows you to change whether your pickups operate in parallel or in series. By changing these settings, you can alternate between single coil and humbucker tone. It really makes for a win/ win. I can upgrade to having a humbucker available, without losing the single coil sound if I need it in the future. New pots run about $15 and another $15 labor to have them installed.

Long story short, instead of going out and spending a thousand dollars on a guitar with humbucker pickups, and taking a $700 bath on my new Strat, I can spend a little over $100 and make it into the guitar I want it to be. Now the challenge is figuring out which pickup to buy. That’s OK, it gives me an excuse to go on guitarcenter.com and look at a bunch of stuff that I don’t have the money to buy!

Keep rockin’ and have fun.

Remember….. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast!!

Playing with Sounds and Textures - Magic Carpet Ride

The last time we got together and played, a couple people brought some new songs to try out. The one I had the most fun with was Magic Carpet Ride by Steppenwolf. First, the song itself is very simple to play. Basically goes like this-

(I like to dream....)

D - D - C - G - G 

(Right between the sound machine...)

D - D - C - C - G - G - G

Repeats...

(Close your eyes girl...)

G - A# - C - G

As always, go online and listen to the song on uTube, Grooveshark or some other online music resource, and it's pretty easy to figure out the rhythm. Once you have the feel for it, play around with the syncopation, and it gets pretty funky pretty fast.

On the second to last verse, on the second time around of the G - A# - C - G, instead of going back to the D - C - G progression, go to the E chord (A shape bar at the 7th fret... play the open low E as well to add extra punch). On Steppenwolf's version, they do this extended, psychedelic, feedback driven, distorted jam. I haven't counted to see for how many measures they do this, but we do it for about 20 measures or so. As a rule of thumb, wait until it feels like it has been going on for an uncomfortably extended time, and go one more measure just to be sure. I'm typically not playing up to this point, we have two other guitars, one playing bar chords, the other open chords through the verses and chorus. When the jam starts, I come in with an over driven, distorted tone. I also use some touch wah and sine chorus to add to the psychedelia. 

I typically don't have feedback issues with my semi-hollow body despite everything everyone told me when I bought it, but in this instance, my goal is to get a very full, warbling feedback. I'll typically come in playing the E, then slide up to a Cmaj7 (A shape at 10th fret on the D - G - B - e strings) and alternate between strumming and picking alternating notes. The chord looks like this:

.e:--12

B:--12

G:--12

D:--10

A:--X

E:--X

After about 20 measures or so, it cuts right back into the first verse (D - C - G progression). I'll have my neck pickup volume set at 0. To act as a cut-off switch, I'll flip from bridge to neck, and go right into the first verse vocals. It makes for a really cool tonal transition!

I know it's hard to conceptualize sounds in words, so  pick up your guitar and play around with it. As a rule in general, but for this song in particular, the louder the better. Get some ear plugs and crank it up. You can't get the same sounds out of your amp at 2 that you can get at 10!

On a side note, I put my first ding in the new Ibanez playing this song. While playing with the angles of the pickups to the amp and changing the tone of the feedback, I accidentally bumped the headstock against the wall..... another cool sound! So, needless to say, this was repeated several times to play with the different sounds and textures. WARNING!!! Don't do this if your guitar is your baby! You will end up with dents and scratches on your headstock.To me, my guitar is a tool, so I'll do whatever I need to in order to get the sound I want out of it. Probably another good reason that I won't buy a guitar for more than a couple hundred dollars. Reading articles in Guitar World the last couple of months, I have read multiple interviews with popular, professional, touring guitarists who have Squire Strats and other similar low budget guitars in their arsenal. What these guys do is buy pickups and electronics that they like, and swap them out with the stock electronics in these cheap guitars. So much more of their tone comes from their amps and effects that the differences between tone woods and construction in a $200 guitar and a $10,000 guitar are negligible. I guess the moral of the story is this.... You don't have to spend a ton of money on gear to have a great time and play great music!

So go get 'em!

Have fun and practice, practice, practice

Remember................ Slow is smooth, smooth is fast!!

B